Cultural Interpretations

When we step back and look at the culture as a whole, we see an interesting picture start to develop. For years, the religious community has complained about liberal theologians and scholar who are re-interpreting the Bible based on current cultural norms. For instance, we see this type of re-interpretation in the area of same-sex marriages. While homoerotic behavior has been condemned by the church for almost 2,000 years (and seemingly backed up by clear scriptural passages), some liberal theologians and scholars are saying that these passages should be interpreted based on what is acceptable in our culture today. In other words, these passages may have been true during the days of the biblical writers, but they are not true now because our society now has new understandings of homoerotic behavior and are more accepting of same-sex marriages. With this type of interpretation, then, you allow the culture to shape the Scripture. Scripture is not a static command from God but a dynamic piece of literature that can be applied as befits our current times.

A recent editorial in World Magazine by Gene Edward Veith, "Liberal oligarchs," makes much the same case in regards to the activist judges who are present throughout our judicial system. In the minds of these liberal justices, "a law has no objective, permanently fixed meaning, and so interpretation means constructing a meaning." Laws should only be applied after considering what the culture and the current society wants.

Conservatives, both conservative jurists and conservative religionists, disagree with this type of cultural intepretation and application. Laws, like scripture, were written with a permanently fixed meaning. We are "not supposed to impose [our] own values or beliefs and rewrite the law [or scripture] accordingly." (Bracketed statements my own addition).

This is one reason why we must stand up during times like this to make our case known. Whether we are talking about influencing elections through our constitutionally given right to vote on issues important to us or shaping the direction our churches and our denominations are headed, we need to keep pressing on to stand against the relativism trend. Truth is truth.